


Alright alright (slow down)

by megyal



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-04 00:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5313443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megyal/pseuds/megyal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Surely you know of the Phoenix Force.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alright alright (slow down)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vaysh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vaysh/gifts).



> This is a quick gift for vaysh11 who was the first to message me using Tumblr's new thingy! It's a lolprize, really. Vaysh asked for 'anything you want with superheroes - Draco as Quicksilver?' And my brain was like REMEMBER HOW YOU LOVED THE PHOENIX FORCE ARC IN THE X-MEN so this is kind of a X-Men/Marvel AU. It's unbeta'ed, so please feel free to point out any mistakes.
> 
> The title is from 'Slow Down' by the The Academy Is...

Draco dropped heavily into a worn armchair and released a bone weary sigh. 

"I cleared my zone, but they just keep coming," he said to no one in particular. At the head of the long table, Weasley stared into the flickering lights of the three dimensional display, his ginger brows furrowed. "I'm fast, but I can't be _everywhere_." 

Weasley didn't respond and Draco huffed. He'd been working very hard; he thought he deserved _some_ acknowledgement. The army of extraterrestrials was unceasing, covering the planet like a swarm. Beside Weasley, Granger's long fingers blurred over the holographic keyboard. 

"All teams are being driven back, " she reported in a low, cool voice, her narrow face without expression. "The Kenyan force is doing fairly well but I've lost contact with the units in Brazil and New York."

Weasley's jaw was clenched so tightly that Draco imagined that he could hear teeth cracking under the strain. When Draco had joined this team of ultra-humans as Lord Mercury a few months ago, he had clashed with Weasley quite often. It didn't help that Weasley's leadership style was exceedingly plodding. Well, to be fair, with Draco's incredible speeds, _everything_ seemed plodding. 

Now, there seemed to be a tense and wordless conversation between Weasley and Granger, in which he turned to stared at the metallic side of her face and she kept her gaze fixed on the flickering display. 

"We have to," she finally said as if they'd been conversing for days. Her voice was the same sort of monotone she used for reports in the tiresome meetings. "We are rapidly approaching the point of last resort." 

"I know that!" Weasley burst out with such violent desperation that Draco jumped in surprise. Of course, such a reaction with his power meant that he was almost at the exit of this massive room (which was really a training area when it wasn't serving as a sort of control center). He hastily caught himself and flashed back to his seat before either of them noticed. Possibly Granger noticed; she'd built that cybernetic eye after all. 

Weasley rubbed one hand over his craggy face, sighing into his palm. "I just don't want him to get hurt," he muttered. 

"He's been working for better control." Granger rose from her post, the pistons in her joints hissing faintly. "Permission to wake him," she requested but Draco thought that if Commander Ginger said no, she'd simply wake him anyway...whoever _he_ was. 

"Go ahead." Weasley looked as if he'd been thinking the same. Granger spun on one heel and marched towards the door. Draco looked from her retreating back to Weasley, who had taken her place on the console. 

"Well, I'll just be going," Draco said lightly, springing out of his own chair. "I just now remembered my family bunker, I'll just pop in there until this is over. Father built it, you know. Horribly paranoid, but that's a supervillain for you--“

"Mercury," Weasley broke in and Draco grimaced. He was _Lord_ Mercury; the utter plebian gall. "As soon as she wakes him, you're out in the field as support...and support only."

"Oh, very well," Draco said with his best haughty sniff. Fastest ultra alive, and he was relegated to _support_. "And, dear leader, what kind of support is expected?"

Weasley's tone managed to be flat and ominous at the same time: "Keep everyone, including yourself, out of his way."

Draco's curiosity bloomed like a hothouse. He sketched a loose salute, and took off in Granger's wake. 'He' sounded dangerous, so that meant Granger was headed to the Vaults, fifteen stories below ground. 

When the elevator opened at the fifth level, Draco was leaning on the wall, curling his lips into a smirk. He had thin lips, and it taken some practice in the mirror to get the angle of smirk just so. Granger didn't appear particularly surprised, but she was mostly cybernetic anyway. Draco had known laptops with more emotion. 

"You don't have clearance past this point," she told him, heading off down the corridor to the staircase at the other end. 

"I know," Draco said, strolling casually in her wake. "The Ginger Avenger put me on support, so I think I deserve to meet this fellow who's going to be on point."

Granger only said, "You seem to delight in referring to Commander Marvel in mocking terms."

Draco's laugh was perfectly derisive. "Wonderful deflection, Robo-Obvious." 

If Granger was offended, she gave no sign. She did, however, allow him with her past the numerous check-zones. One of them was thick but invisible layer of energy which felt like it had rearranged the marrow in his bones. 

They went all the way to the lowest level. This corridor, like the five others above it, had doors set deep in its gleaming silver walls. Granger went to one near the middle on the left, and stood there waiting. Draco expected another scan, but the huge combination lock clicked one way and then the other. The door swung open; horizontal lines of tiny lights on the walls, about knee height, lit up slowly. They cast soft yellow rays into the small space.

The _very_ small space: no more than a closet, really. Most of the cramped area was taken up by a pod made of glass and metal. Frost, or something just as coldly lace-like, covered the curved top of the pod. As Draco watched, the frost began to vanish. 

"When he wakes up, he may scan you," Granger said. "He doesn't mean to be rude. It's purely reflex and he really keeps to your surface thoughts. But don't fight him on it. He might delve deeper in reaction and you won't want that."

She stood on one side of the pod and gazed down at the surface of the pod with a soft look on her half-cybernetic face. For some reason, Draco experienced an anticipation so deep that it felt like shadows and lightning in his chest.

To shake himself out of that strange sensation, he said, "So who's this, then? Who's our last resort?" 

Granger gave him a long stare. "This is Harry."

Draco wrinkled his nose and shrugged. _So?_

She could have been smiling, but it was hard to tell. "Surely you know of the Phoenix Force."

Draco scrambled away. He moved with such speed that he felt himself bounce against the metal wall. He plastered himself against the cold surface, breathing in such frenzied gasps that he became lightheaded. 

He fought to calm himself, and let his gaze slide towards the person he could now see laying in the pod: a slim brown man with messy black hair. How could someone so ordinary looking, almost forgettable, be The Ultra...the most powerful of their kind? Nearly twenty years ago, The Ultra had been possessed by a cosmic entity and had nearly ripped the planet in half. 

Draco remembered that day, when he was just about nine. He had been at home at the Manor, playing in the back garden. The earth shuddered and twisted, and reality bent in on itself. A light flared all around, so bright that he could taste it through his skin. His parents shouted from inside the house, and he tried to turn towards them, but he didn't know where they were. The darkness that followed was quiet and complete. 

Then the world painted itself around him once more, swaths of vibrant colour that resolved into the flowers of his mother's garden. The bees, fat and golden, waddled fuzzily from petal to petal. His mother caught him up in a tight hug, sobbing into his hair. 

As far as he knew, this zone's faction of ultras had managed to subdue the cosmic entity and _The_ Ultra had been placed in suspension. 

"Don't wake him up," Draco said in a hoarse whisper. "Are you mad? Don't let him out!" 

Granger was indeed smiling when she glanced at him sidelong. "Do you think we could keep Harry in here against his will? Harry put himself here."

Draco swallowed hard and unpeeled himself from the wall. "But the Phoenix Force--" 

"Is gone. It had been gone from that day." She returned her gaze to The Ultra's slumbering face. "When the Phoenix came here, it was malevolent, full of hate. We don't know why. But it took over Harry when we tried to fight it, and it destroyed the Earth. But Harry...he removed whatever had made the Phoenix so wrong and together they put everything back together again."

"Wait." Draco held up one hand. "Are you saying they resurrected _everything_?" 

"That is one of the powers of the Phoenix Force," Granger said matter-of-factly, quite oblivious to Draco's tumbling state of mind. He felt quite faint once more; he had died. Everything he knew and loved had perished, and had been brought back again. What the fuck. 

"When the Phoenix departed, it left quite a bit of its essence in him, but Harry felt it was too much." Granger actually sighed. "So, he put himself in suspension."

She returned her attention to The Ultra with the same gentle expression as before. The slumbering man's eyelids fluttered; he looked very young, even though he was two decades older than Draco. Wildly, Draco thought that this suspension bit could beat out cosmetic surgery any day. He'd known that Granger and Weasley were years older than he was, but Weasley carried himself like a battle worn general, and Granger had covered quite a bit of her body with metallic upgrades. 

"Harry," she called, softly. "Wake up."

She never used that that tone with Weasley, Draco thought. 

"Were you two shagging or what?" he blurted. Granger rolled her eyes; at least the natural one moved. The mechanical one remained fixed, and Draco found that extremely creepy. 

She didn't grace him with an answer, for the glass cover of the pod melted away and The Ultra opened his eyes. 

_Green_ , was Draco's only thought before he felt a powerful pressure in his mind. It was like his brain had been seized by a giant's hand. He pushed back frantically and the hand became a drill, probing. Draco tried to twist away, to _run_ , but he couldn't. 

_don't fight it_ , he told himself fiercely. _just...don't fight it_. 

Draco tried to relax. The pressure immediately eased and then dissipated. 

"There," he heard Granger say. "Up, there we go."

"Hello." The Ultra's voice was low and rough, but he didn't sound as if he'd been in a state of suspended animation for years. "So sorry about that. How are you, Hermione? You look wonderful."

"Go on with you," Granger said. "Can you stand up?" 

"Yes." The Ultra rose easily. He was fairly average in height but still shorter than Granger and Draco. His hair flopped over his eyes, and he yawned as he shuffled to the doorway.

The Ultra stepped out into the corridor on bare feet. He wore a ratty t-shirt and a pair of blue pyjama bottoms. Beside Draco and Granger in their sleek black uniforms, he was positively rumpled. 

"I'm Harry," he said, turning to look at Draco with bright green eyes. "You can stop thinking my codename so hard."

Draco spluttered, "You're not to read me like that! That--that's _rude_!"

The Ultra--Harry--gave him a quirky little smile. "You were literally shouting it. What's your name?"

Unsettled, Draco snapped, "if you want to know so badly, why don't you just take it from my mind?" 

Harry shrugged. "You don't want me to do that," he said, gaze direct and heavy.

"It's Draco Malfoy, if you really must know," Draco said as ungraciously as possible. "Codename Lord Mercury." 

"Oh, that's not pretentious at all," Harry said with a low chuckle. Draco bristled. "But Draco is a nice name. I like it. So, aliens."

"What?" Draco managed through his confusion. Granger elbowed him out of her way and it was only then that Draco recalled the invasion above; he really couldn't be blamed. After all, he'd just met The Ultra. 

He watched Harry's face as Granger gave a rapid breakdown. He nodded from time to time but he seemed distant. 

"They have some pretty strong telepathic shielding," Harry finally said, and Draco realised that he'd been reaching out with his abilities, cataloguing the attackers. "They've got clusters of minds linked together, so they're resisting me fairly well. But I've managed to slow them a little."

He extended his arms to them. Granger immediately took his left, her silvery fingers grasping his dark ones tightly. Flames licked around Harry's body, tiny tongues of orange and yellow; then, in a blink, an inferno raged around him. There was no heat, but it was very bright.

 _It should be green, like his eyes_ , Draco thought as he took Harry's other hand. He mentally berated himself at how Harry blinked at him and then smiled, slowly. The flames leaped towards Draco and Hermione, whirling around them. The flames backed off; at least, they went back to whirl around Harry's body only.

He had transported them to the surface, as easy as that. The buildings in this narrow streets were empty, the shop-front windows wide and dark like frightened eyes. A massive starship hovered overhead, its bulk blotting out nearly half the sky. A wave of smaller vessels zipped around urgently, battling the fighter jets which tried to get near. Draco could hear people shouting in the distance, and the heavy steps of an alien troop marching along the nearby roads. Draco pulled down the special goggles from his forehead to cover his eyes, and adjusted his cowl over his bright hair.

"Commander," he heard Granger say in his earpiece. "The Ultra is onsite."

"Good," Weasley breathed out. "Just--take care of him. After."

"I will," Granger said and nodded at Harry. "Ready?"

"Always." Harry rose into the air, the fire growing massive around his body and forming into the shape of a colossal bird. He hovered high above for a moment, a tiny shape trapped in the middle of a conflagration. Then, he flickered off towards the starship, leaving a trail of light as he went.

"Let's go clear that street," Granger said. "Harry'll take care of the rest."

Draco nodded; he raced off, zipping around the corner and careening right into a troop of aliens. They were very tall and powerfully built, their suits gleaming white. Draco dashed to one side and ran up the side of the nearest building, flipping head over heels to avoid the blasts of their weapons. He landed right in the middle of the crowd once more, flashing from one side to the other, ripping at the life-support systems of their suits. A whole clump of them was blasted away, and Draco glanced back to see Granger taking aim with her left hand, which had transformed to the impressive sonic cannon. She supported it with her right, head tilted slightly as her mechanical iris whirled.

Draco leapt nimbly out of the way of the next shot; as he twisted, the sky above spun into view. The starship was engulfed in the fire of the Phoenix. In addition, it was being shoved back, turning askew. The smaller ships frantically tried to defend it, but they were either turned back by The Ultra's flames, or attacked by the fighter jets.

"Mercury!" Granger yelled and he was at her side in an instant. They both watched as alien forces began to collapse, writhing on the ground. Draco looked up and felt his eyes widen: just behind the starship was a dark aperture, a grand spot of nothing in the sky. The Ultra was slowly, determinedly, shoving the massive spacecraft into that portal.

Rings of blue light lit up at one side of the spaceship, massive thrusters activated to counter the pushing of The Ultra. The flames glowed white and with one final heave, the ship was hurled into the aperture. For a moment, before that strange portal closed, Draco saw it roll in the blankness of some distant space. The smaller vessels fled to the west, hotly pursued by the jets.

The flames of The Ultra guttered abruptly; Harry fell.

"Oh fuck, we have to catch him!" Granger shouted but Draco was already hundreds of feet ahead before she finished her sentence. Harry was so far away, but Draco still grinned. He wasn't too far for Lord Mercury. 

Draco made sure to catch him securely, gripping behind his neck so his great speed wouldn't snap Harry's spine (although he was sure that The Ultra's powers could take care of that). He skidded to a halt, Harry's body cradled in his arms.

The Ultra's eyelids snapped up and the flames of the Phoenix raged in his eyes. Draco nearly dropped him, fear stripping his bones.

"Who am I?" The Ultra asked, speaking in many terrible voices. His whole face was on fire now. Draco took a few deep breaths, and against his better judgement, he clutched the burning man even closer to his chest.

"You're Harry," he said in the gentlest of whispers. "You're Harry."

"Oh." The fire faded into a green so lovely that from then on, Draco would feel a lump in his throat any time he saw a colour like it. Harry blinked away the last of the flames and muttered, "I'm very sleepy," before closing his eyes again and going completely limp.

"Mercury," someone said behind him. He turned to see Weasley and Granger striding towards him. Weasley touched Harry's hair in a quick stroke before lifting him out of Draco's arms.

"Good job," Commander Marvel said, and turned back towards their headquarters. 

They were all silent as they carried him back down to the Vault. Draco watched Weasley place Harry in the pod, fussily arranging his limbs until it seemed he was at his most comfortable. 

"I'd like to stay for a moment," he said when they turned to leave. "I won't disturb him. I just...want to stay."

Granger and Weasley glanced at each other, and they both nodded. Draco waited until they both left before he moved to stand beside the pod. The glass and frost began to materialize over Harry's still frame. It paused when Draco reached out and touched his upturned palm.

Harry's fingers immediately closed over his, but he didn't wake up. Draco stood there for a very long time, watching his peaceful face.

fin


End file.
